


Scream to be Heard (Like You Needed Anymore Attention)

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Character, Coming Out, Fluff and Angst, Minor Injuries, Post-The X Factor Era, The X Factor Era, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 16:31:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Everything kind of becomes a blur after that. Everyone is jumping and yelling, and hugging? Liam thinks there was a group-hug in there somewhere. Simon said something about putting in a lot of work? He does feel a little bad about not listening to Simon better, but he’s pretty sure he can make an exception this time. Besides, he always works hard. He’s not going to let anything get in the way of achieving his dream, not even the four other boys he’s supposed to rely on now.Oh fuck, the four other boys he has to rely on now. His future depends on these other boys not only working just as hard as him, but on them working with him. And, to be honest, Liam hasn’t had much luck on that front before. There’s a reason he auditioned as a solo act, after all.He might throw up after all.Or, an X Factor era fic where Liam's just trying to fit in, featuring First Time Friend Liam, Actual Dad Louis, All Knowing Niall, Quiet But Deadly Zayn, and Excitable Puppy Harry. Join them on their journey to figure out who they are and how they work together, as band members and as people.





	Scream to be Heard (Like You Needed Anymore Attention)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheMipstaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMipstaz/gifts).



> hi y'all! i am a pinch hitter for this, so TheMipstaz, i hope you like this! i couldn't decide between two of your prompts, so i tried to combine them the best i could.
> 
> also some disclaimers, i am very american and did not have a brit picker go through this, so please forgive the american-ness of the dialogue. the first half or so is set in the x factor era, so many parts are based on things that happened, but none of this is true. also prepare for some serious fluff, because it seems like it's kind of impossible for me to write anything else?? 
> 
> there will be multiple time jumps in the fic  
> ~*~ this pattern means it's a very large time jump, it's changed to a completely different setting  
> \--- means a smaller time jump, it's in the same setting but maybe a different day  
> ~ means an even smaller time jump, maybe only a couple hours or so
> 
> i would also like to ask that y'all don't give up on louis right away. he comes off like a douche for a fair amount of the fic, but he's really not trying to. for the most part this is written from liam's pov, and he's not the most reliable narrator, so he tends to misunderstand what's happening.

“They’re just trying to make us cry more so they can get more footage for the show,” the curly haired boy (Harry maybe?) moans while they wait to be called on stage again.

Liam feels the knot of anxiety in his stomach tighten even more. He almost turns around to tell the boy to be quiet; lord knows his nerves are already shot through, he doesn’t need this kid making it worse. Liam wishes that the judges would hurry up and bring them on stage so they can find out what’s going on. At least his first time through they squashed his dreams pretty quick, this is just torture now.

“All right boys, they’re ready for you,” one of the stage hands tells them and starts gesturing towards the stage.

Liam lied; he takes back his wish about the judges hurrying up. Standing on the stage with just those four other boys (and there’s a group of girls too, what’s going on?), he wishes he was back stage again, talking with all of the other contestants about what music they like and what they do. Or that he was standing with his family at least! Oh god, he’s going to throw up if he has to stand here another minute, he just knows it.

Liam doesn’t know what to do with his hands while they’re standing there. Everyone does this weird thing on these shows where they hold hands and hug even though they don’t know each other, and it seems like this time is no different. The oldest boy in their group (Lewis maybe?) slings an arm around Liam’s shoulders and pulls him in towards the group before he can do anything else.

“Thank you for coming back. I know, judging from some of your faces that this is really hard,” Nicole’s soft voice starts.

Liam wants to scream, no fucking duh this is hard! Can she just get to the point?

“We think it would a great idea to have two separate groups,” she continues.

Groups? They’re all solo acts, why are they talking to them about groups? Unless… Oh my god, they’re not…

“We’ve decided to put you both through-” Simon doesn’t even finish his sentence before they all start yelling and jumping.

Oh my god, he’s through … Liam made it through! He can’t believe it! He’s going to be part of a group, and that’s definitely not how he imagined this going, but who cares? He made it through!

Everything kind of becomes a blur after that. Everyone is jumping and yelling, and hugging? He thinks there was a group-hug in there somewhere. Simon said something about putting in a lot of work? Liam does feel a little bad about not listening to Simon better, but he’s pretty sure he can make an exception this time. Besides, he always works hard. He’s not going to let anything get in the way of achieving his dream, not even the four other boys he’s supposed to rely on now.

Oh fuck _, the four other boys he has to rely on now_. His future depends on these other boys not only working just as hard as him, but on them working _with_ him. And, to be honest, Liam hasn’t had much luck on that front before. There’s a reason he auditioned as a solo act, after all.

He might throw up after all.

~*~*~*~*~

Liam’s not sure if he’s going to make it through all of this. The moment he thinks he can’t get any more nervous, they throw something else at him that makes his anxiety spike.

A week together alone at a bungalow. One whole week, _together alone_ with four other boys, this has literally never happened. Not to throw a pity party or anything, but Liam could barely get anyone to come to his birthday party when it was only a couple hours during the day, how is he going to socialize with four boys he doesn’t know for a whole week? He is not prepared for this!

What if they don’t like him? Sure they don’t know all the stuff that the kids at school know about him, and they won’t know anything he doesn’t tell them, but what if there’s just something inherently unlikeable about him? And Liam doesn’t want to lie to them about anything, there’s no way they can work as a group if they can’t be honest with each other. Maybe he can just leave things out? Yeah, he’ll just leave out the more embarrassing things and it’ll be ok! Because as much as he has to depend on them to win this competition, they have to depend on him too; despite some of their appearances and their attitudes, Liam knows how serious all of them are about winning this. That’s got to count for something.

“Okay sweetie, we’re here!” Liam’s mum calls out from the front of the car. She sounds like she’s trying to hold back tears. “Now honey, we’ll be just a phone call away the whole week, okay? We’ll come pick you up right away if you need us to. Please text us at least once a day so we know that you’re alive, and try to call us if you can? We know you boys will be busy, but it would be nice to hear from you. And don’t let those boys pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to or know that you shouldn’t.”

“Mum!” Liam groans. They’re a bunch of sixteen year old boys, what does she think they’re going to get up to? Oh, they’re a bunch of sixteen year old boys, maybe she’s right to be worried.

“Now Liam, don’t talk to your mother like that. I’m sure those boys are all perfectly nice young men, but that doesn’t mean they won’t get up to some mischief. Especially with that one older boy who’s already eighteen. Believe it or not, I was once your age too, I know what it’s like to be young with no parental supervision for the first time. Promise me you’ll be careful and to call us right away if anything happens or you want to leave,” Liam’s dad glances back at him in the rearview mirror.

Liam sighs, “I promise.”

“Cheer up honey! You’re finally getting to hang out with boys your age like normal. You should be excited!” His mum has definitely started crying a bit.

~

So far so good. Liam was surprised to see that Louis had gotten there before him (Liam is used to being the first person to arrive since he actually shows up at the time he’s told to get there, not the unofficial start time that other people seem to go by?). Apparently, Louis got there early to help Harry set up, which Liam shouldn’t have been surprised by since those two seemed to have gotten on especially well together while they were at boot camp. (Something about meeting in the bathroom? Someone might have gotten peed on, Liam’s not sure because by that point he tuned out to save himself from the second hand embarrassment.) Niall got there not too long after Liam, so he didn’t have to awkwardly sit with Louis and Harry for too long. Zayn showed up last, surprising no one. Zayn hadn’t even gone to their meeting when they planned this week long retreat, so it wasn’t like any of them had high expectations.

Harry had given a quick tour of the bungalow, but as soon as Niall saw the pool in the backyard, hell kind of broke loose. Niall didn’t give a warning besides an excited shout (he might have said something about a ‘craic’? no one was really sure) and took off running towards the pool. He managed to strip down to his boxers on the way, which honestly was kind of impressive considering how fast he was running, and just cannonballed in. Louis yelled “last one in is a rotten egg” and grabbed Harry before anyone could really do anything else, and then they were both in the pool too, fully clothed though. Liam didn’t know what to do, so he turned to Zayn for help, but he just glared and said “don’t you dare.”

So now they were all hanging out around the pool, Liam and Zayn had gone and changed into bathing suits before joining the others. Louis, Niall, and Harry all seem fine just swimming in their boxers. Although, if the pile of clothing on the side of the pool is anything to go by, Harry has made himself even more comfortable and opted out of wearing his boxers. Liam’s trying not to think about it.

It’s been pretty fun so far, actually. Liam was surprised that all the boys immediately tried to claim him for their team of water volleyball (you can hardly call it water polo ok? They’re basically just tossing ball over a net at this point) when he and Zayn finally joined them. The only thing bothering him is that Louis won’t quit bothering Zayn about getting in the pool with them. Liam doesn’t know why, but Zayn won’t get in the water. He’s acting as their referee though, so it’s not like he’s being left out. Louis won’t let it go though, and keeps splashing him to try and get him to get in, and Zayn looks like he won’t stand for it much longer.

*Splash*

“Come on Zayn!”

*Splash*

“Louis, stop.”

*Splash*

“Come on Zayn!” Louis starts to whine. “Get in the pool or I’ll keep splashing you!”

*Splash*

“Louis, knock it off.”

*Splash*

“That’s not a yes!”

*Splash*

“Louis.”

*Splash, splash, splash*

“I can’t swim okay!” Zayn’s irritation finally wins out. “I don’t know how to swim so I’m not getting in the pool!”

Louis finally stops splashing him, and surprisingly looks a little contrite for pushing Zayn to admit that.

“Oh,” Louis pauses, looking unsure for a second before his face settles into a more serious expression. He swims over to where Zayn is sitting and starts whispering to him. Liam can’t hear what Louis’s saying, but Zayn doesn’t look as upset anymore. Liam tries to swim closer as inconspicuously as possible and catches the tail end of what Louis is saying.

“-ously, I’ve got like a bazillion little sisters at home and I taught all of them how to swim. It’s totally not a big deal.”

“Come on, Payno,” Liam jumps when Niall claps a hand down on his shoulder and starts pulling him over to where Harry is doing swimming tricks on the other side of the water volleyball net. Guess he wasn’t as inconspicuous as he thought. “Probably best to leave that between them two, yeah?”

Not even a minute later Louis starts splashing around to get their attention and announces in one of his most obnoxious voices, “All right lads! Come get a look at our new designated referee! Zayn will be the one to make all calls regarding any water related game or sport from now until the end of our lives!”

Liam looks over to Zayn to gage how he feels about his new position in the band. Liam’s surprised to see Zayn actually smiling a little, making that awkward face where he’s trying not to smile, but can’t quite stop himself. Liam turns away and looks towards Harry when he starts shouting too.

“This calls for a celebration!”

Before anyone can do anything else, Harry does his best attempt at a handstand. Simultaneously, the other four boys groan, yelling at Harry and splashing him with water when he resurfaces.

“Put some pants on before you do tricks like that!”

Liam’s not sure who yelled that, but he whole heartedly agrees. He’s apparently not the only one either, since not even 15 seconds later, someone smacks Harry in the face with his boxers.

Zayn sits on the side of the pool, looking smug and says to himself, “I may not be able to swim, but I have damn good aim.”

\----------

“Okay guys, so I think we should try practicing together. Hey, guys! Ugh, I don’t even know why I bother,” Liam sighs. He can barely hear himself over the noise of Louis, Niall, and Harry rough-housing in the space they cleared out in the living room, so he doubts they can hear him. It’s already the second day of their ‘Bonding Week,’ as Harry’s taken to calling it, and they haven’t tried singing together at all. As important as all of them getting on well is, they also need to put some practical work into their technique if they’re going to get anywhere. No one seems inclined to listen, though. Liam should have known it would be like this.

Before Liam can go sulk in another part of the house, a piercing whistle comes from his left. He looks over at Zayn, who’s sitting next to him on the couch watching the other boys mess around. The other three freeze: Louis is sitting on top of Harry but also somehow holding Niall down by … his nipples? Even though there’s no way that can be comfortable, they stay in position and turn their heads towards Liam and Zayn. Liam looks at Zayn expectantly too, until he nudges Liam with his elbow, none too gently he might add, and nods towards the other boys. Liam looks at Louis, Niall, and Harry, and is startled to find them all looking right back at him.

Zayn nudges him again and whispers, “Practice?”

“Oh! Um, yeah!” This was so much easier when none of them were paying any attention to him. “Um, I was thinking that, uh, we should practice? Yeah, we need to practice. Or at least figure out where everyone stands so we can start trying to figure out how our voices fit together.”

No one reacts right away, but the mood drops from carefree to tense almost instantly. Liam hates being the bearer of bad news, but they couldn’t spend the whole week goofing off. Louis suddenly perks up, the serious look in his eyes giving way to something more mischievous. Liam already didn’t like the look of it. He suddenly lets go of Niall’s nipples (Liam still doesn’t understand that one, but his hands start moving to cover his own nipples almost subconsciously) and jumps up from where he was sitting on Harry.

“You know what that means right?” Liam really doesn’t like the look in Louis’ eyes. “Karaoke!”

That seems to be the magic word. The tense atmosphere dissipates instantaneously and Harry and Niall are off the floor and on their feet in the time it takes for them to echo Louis’ yell of karaoke. Harry takes off running upstairs (to find a karaoke machine?) with Niall and Louis right behind him.

“No, wait. We need to take this seriously!”

“I would let this one go,” Zayn claps his hand on Liam’s shoulder and stands up from the couch. “You’re gonna have to learn to pick your battles, mate.”

Liam’s reply is cut off by Zayn offering his hand to Liam. “Come on, we might as well join them. If we hurry we might even get there before they break something.”

\----------

“All right Ladies and Germs-” Louis hasn’t even finished saying ladies and Niall is already rolling on the floor and laughing like he just heard the best joke of his life. Liam thinks he might be crying from laughing so hard. Harry starts patting his back to calm Niall down from where he’s sitting on the floor next to him.

“Niall please, I’m going to have to cut you off before you even start drinking at this rate!”

Cut him off? Cut him off from what? Liam has a sneaking suspicion that, like much of the week has gone, he’s not going to like whatever Louis’ about to do next.

“Lads, tonight is the night you become men!”

“Oh fuck off Tommo! Some of us are already men!” Louis shoots Niall an unimpressed look at that before getting back into character. He pulls a bottle out from behind his back and starts waving it around.

“It’s time for some alcohol, boys!” Louis yells as he walks into the living room from the kitchen, and all the others start cheering.

All the others except for Liam, that is.

Liam pales a little at the sight of the alcohol. God, he thought he was going to be able to get away without telling the boys any of the embarrassing parts of his life, and Louis had to go and fuck it up for him. This is literally their last night here at the bungalow before they have to go face the competition as a group, and he thought he was going to be able to make it out unscathed. Sure it hadn’t been the smoothest of weeks; Liam could feel the tension between him and Louis separating him from all the other boys, but they were still able to work together and start the process of figuring out how they fit together. This was going to ruin everything. There’s no way he can drink any of the alcohol, even if he wanted to! He can’t afford to fuck up the one kidney he has left. But he knows that Louis won’t just accept a no, he’ll keep pushing until Liam either gives in or tells him everything, like he did with Zayn out at the pool on the first day. He can’t tell them though! It’ll be like school all over again, they’ll be too busy feeling sorry for him to take him seriously. They’ll probably try and get him kicked out of the group! Fuck, why couldn’t their last night be a normal one!

“C’mon Tommo! Let me have at it!”

“Woah there Nialler! If I let you have it first, there won’t be any left for the rest of us!”

Louis literally climbs over Harry to stop him from grabbing the bottle and grumbles, “Bunch of lushes, the lot of ya.”

Louis finally makes it over to where Liam and Zayn are sitting together on the couch. He offers Zayn the bottle first, and he takes it with a small shrug. Louis looks at Liam while Zayn takes a drink and starts wiggling his eyebrows in a way that Liam thinks is meant to be enticing, but is honestly just intimidating.

“What do you say Payno? You ready to loosen up and have some fun?”

Liam shakes his head and leans away from Zayn when he holds it out to him. “I can’t have alcohol.”

Louis’ face scrunches up a little at that, “You can’t or you won’t? It’s okay to drink some Liam, none of us are going to tell you parents or anything.”

Liam knew he wouldn’t understand. Fuck, he’s going to have to tell them all about his kidney. Why can’t Louis just back off?

“I just can’t, okay?”

Louis grabs the bottle back from Zayn and frowns harder at how tense Liam is getting. “Okay, if you’re sure…”

At Liam’s terse nod, Louis shrugs and turns back to Niall and Harry. He puts a smile back on his face and sits on the floor with them. “I don’t mind if Liam’s going to be a party pooper. That just means there’s more booze for us!”

“I’m not being a party pooper! I literally cannot have alcohol! Sorry my body can’t process alcohol because I only have one working kidney!”

There he said it. God, why does he always have to bring everyone’s moods down? Niall isn’t even trying to grab the bottle out of Louis’ hand anymore and Harry isn’t smiling. No one seems to know what to do, so they all just keep staring at Liam.

Despite his better judgement, Louis tries to break the tense atmosphere and mumbles, “Still more booze for us?”

Liam’s jaw drops in surprise, but it only takes a couple of seconds for his mouth to click shut and for him to stand up from the couch. “Of course that’s what you’d say. I shouldn’t have said anything, I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

Louis winces and starts to stand up, “No, Liam, wait.”

Niall and Harry scramble up from the floor too.

“Hey now-”

“What do you mean-”

“Liam wait,” Zayn grabs his arm and stops him from walking out of the living room. “You don’t get to drop bombs like that and just leave after. Talk to us, yeah?”

“Yeah mate, give us a second to take in what you said before you run off. It’s not every day you find out someone only has one kidney,” Niall says gruffly, running a hand through his hair.

Harry steps forward a little and gestures back to where he and Niall had been sitting, “Let’s all sit down and talk about it yeah? We’re a group now, we can’t just run away when things get awkward. Think of this as our first hurdle, we have to work together to get over it.”

Everyone walks to the middle of the living room and sits in a circle. Louis and Liam sit across from each other, with Niall to Liam’s right, Zayn to his left, and Harry in between Louis and Zayn. All of them are looking at Liam expectantly again.

“What?” Liam asks, tone a little sharper than he intended it to be.

Harry opens and closes his mouth a couple times and starts a couple different sentences trying to find the right way to ask his question without offending Liam. Niall gets tired of waiting for Harry to find his words and asks bluntly, “First thing’s first, what’s up with your kidney?”

“Niall!” Harry chastises (Harry sounds so scandalized on Liam’s behalf that he’s surprised Harry isn’t clutching a pair of pearls). Niall just shrugs him off and looks at Liam.

“I’ve had a lot of health issues ever since I was little. I was always in and out the hospital having tests run and getting treatments. Somewhere along the way, one of my kidneys got damaged enough that it stopped working. So I can’t drink too much of anything or I’ll overload my working kidney,” Liam explains despondently.

“Liam, that’s kind of important for the rest of us to know,” At Liam’s bewildered expression, Harry continues. “I mean it! It’s really important that we know that stuff about each other! I know we all started this competition as solo acts and we don’t know each other very well yet, but we’re a group now. We’re a band. We’re supposed to look out for each other now. This won’t work unless we trust each other, and that trust starts with sharing the basic parts of ourselves, like having only one working kidney. We’re in this together and we need to look out for each other because not many others will.”

“Damn Harry,” Liam’s not sure who whispered that, but he wholeheartedly agrees.

“Now,” Harry focuses back in on Liam. “Why didn’t you think we would understand? Why didn’t you want to tell us about something so important?”

Liam looks down at the floor and starts fidgeting with his hands. “Already said it, didn’t I? I was in and out of the hospital a lot when I was younger. And you’ve all seen the pictures of me when I was younger, I wasn’t exactly the coolest person. A lot of the kids at school weren’t very nice or understanding about it.”

Zayn ducks down to look into Liam’s eyes and asks, not unkindly, “Why does that matter?”

Liam looks away and takes a second to breathe, “It matters because it means that I don’t have friends and I didn’t want to scare you four off with my wonky kidney.”

Niall clamps his hand down on Liam’s shoulder so suddenly that Liam startles. “Mate, it’s going to take a lot more than a wonky kidney to scare us off. You don’t need kidneys to make friends. I’m sorry all the kids at your school are such shits, but have a little faith in us, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Harry speaks up suddenly. “And your wonky kidney has nothing on my four nipples!”

“What the fuck Harry?” They all turn to look at him and Harry blushes in embarrassment.

“What I meant was, like, don’t feel bad about your kidney? Like, you’re not the only one here with a weird body? No that’s not it…” Harry trips over his words. “I meant, please don’t feel like you’re weird because of your kidney. Or like, don’t feel the bad weird about it? We’ve all got weird and embarrassing things about ourselves that other people have been shit to us about, but, like, we don’t have to be shits about it to each other. Your wonky kidney doesn’t make me like you any less, and I hope that my four nipples don’t make you like me any less.”

“Oh I get it!” Niall says. “I’ve got a bum knee! I have to be careful running around and stuff to make sure I don’t hurt it again!”

“Niall! You have a bum knee and you didn’t tell us?” Harry turns a disapproving glare onto Niall. “We’ve been wrestling the whole week! That’s really important! We could have hurt you.”

Niall at least looks sheepish, “Sorry, it kind of just slipped my mind.”

“I’ve already told you guys that I can’t swim,” Zayn holds up his hands to fend off their replies. “I’ve already shared my embarrassing quality for the week.”

They all turn to look at Louis.

“Ah, um, I have, um…” Louis flounders, but sighs in defeat at a stern look from Harry. “Look, I’m not great at emotions and being serious and all this shit. I know jokes and I know how to make people laugh, so that’s what I do.”

Harry elbows Louis in the side, a little harder than a friendly gesture calls for. “Ow, fuck. Okay, okay. And I’m sorry I made a joke and hurt your feelings. I was just trying to lighten the mood.”

“There, that wasn’t so hard was it?” Harry asks smugly. Louis reaches over and twists Harry’s nipple in retaliation, and it quickly devolves into another wrestling match. Just like that the tension is broken and the moment is gone. Niall starts laughing, to release built up tension more than anything else it seems.

Louis finally beats Harry (he had to have pulled some kind of trick, if Liam’s learned anything this week, it’s that Louis is a scrappy fighter) and yells triumphantly, “Let the party begin!”

~

Liam’s not really sure how he ended up here, stuck in a closet with Zayn. Well that’s a lie; he knows exactly how he ended up here: Louis.

Louis had gotten bored of just watching movies, so he decided that they should play some good old party games to pass the time and get to know each other. He couldn’t decide on a game, so they ended up playing all of the games simultaneously. It was the basic premise of truth or dare, except they chose each other by spinning a bottle, and if they refused to do the dare or share the truth, they had to do a short round of some other party game (Never Have I Ever seems to be a popular punishment game so far). It was actually pretty funny for a bit, but then, as the games tend to do, they started to get…intimate. Somehow the boys all ended up sharing their sexuality and some of their experiences as they tried to one up each other.

(This was mostly Harry, who apparently had no shame and happily talked about some of the things he did. At one point, the boys refused to believe him and all he could do was shrug and said “What can I say boys? I just love love, and I love all its different forms.”

Zayn, as vague and noncommittal as he’s been the whole time just said he couldn’t be fussed about people’s genders.

Louis for once looked a bit uncertain as he admitted that he was starting to rule out girls. “Haven’t quite met a bird I like yet, to be honest.”

Niall looked thoughtful, “I haven’t thought about blokes before, but I can’t say I have anything against it.”

Liam was able to change the subject before anyone noticed he hadn’t answered. That was one thing he was never telling anyone.)

Zayn and Liam are currently stuck in a closet because Zayn wouldn’t do one of Louis’ dares. Louis had dared Zayn to give one of them a lap dance, but Zayn had refused on the grounds that it was too much effort. So as punishment, Louis said Zayn had to play 7 Minutes in Heaven with one of them. Liam’s pretty sure the only reason Zayn choose him was because he was the closest person to him.

So now, here they are standing awkwardly in the dim light of the closet. After a solid minute of neither of them moving, Zayn finally sighs and gently grabs Liam’s face.

“You okay with this?”

“No,” Liam squeaks. Zayn immediately lets go and backs up as much as he can in the small closet.

“You know it’s cool if you’re straight, right? I know we all said we’re not, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to give you shit if you are, and then we’ll know not to mess around with you like this since it makes you uncomfortable-”

“No! It doesn’t- I’m not- I…” Liam interjects but trails off.

“Liam, you can’t tell me this doesn’t make you uncomfortable,” Zayn says as deadpan as possible.

“No, it’s not like that,” Liam ignores Zayn’s disbelieving look. “Okay, yes, this makes me uncomfortable, but it’s not because I’m straight! I’m not uncomfortable because you’re a guy, because honestly, you’re a very pretty guy and I’m sure many people want to kiss you. It’s the kissing part that makes me uncomfortable. I’m just not into kissing or…or any of the other stuff. I’m not straight, but I also don’t want to kiss you.”

Zayn looks more confused the more Liam talks. “You’re not straight, but you don’t like guys?”

“I never said that-”

“Ugh!” They can hear Louis groaning in the living room. “Seven minutes is way too long to wait! I’m so bored. I’m going to go get them so we can keep playing!”

“We can talk about this later,” Liam rushes out.

“I’m holding you to that,” Zayn says. He steps forward and kisses Liam’s cheek before he can do anything.

Louis opens the door right as Zayn is pulling away, and he makes a surprised noise while Zayn walks past him to go sit down again. Liam is stuck where he’s standing, face flushed bright red.

Louis starts crowing in delight, “Get in Liam!”

Liam tries to explain that nothing happened, but can’t stop stuttering, so Louis just grabs his arm. He pulls him back to the others and pats his back in congratulations.

~

Liam groggily sits up and looks around the room. The only light in the room is coming from the television, where the menu screen from the movie they were watching is playing on a loop. All of the boys are spread out around the living room; Harry is taking up two cushions on the three seater couch with Louis curled up on the last cushion with his head resting on the arm of the couch, Niall is stretched out over the loveseat, leaving Liam and Zayn on the floor with a pile of blankets and pillows. Liam pulls out his phone to check the time and winces, both at the brightness of his phone and the time. It’s just past three in the morning, meaning he’d barely been asleep for two hours.

Liam stands up, being as careful as possible to not disturb Zayn, and stretches. He notices that Niall’s blanket has slipped off of him onto the floor and that Louis has completely hogged the blanket he had been sharing with Harry. He picks up Niall’s blanket and covers him back up, and then he grabs one of the blankets he had been using and throws it over Harry. With the boys covered up, he starts to pick up some of the empty bottles and cans, wrappers, and dishes they had left lying around from their movie snacks and throws them away or puts them in the kitchen sink for later. That should minimize the chance of the boys making a bigger mess or hurting themselves in the morning.

On his way back through the living room he turns off the DVD player and the television. Liam pulls out his phone and uses that as a flashlight for his trip to the bathroom. He decides to use the one upstairs in hopes that it won’t be as loud as the downstairs one, and hopefully it won’t wake up any of the boys.

Just as Liam is washing his hands in the sink, the bathroom door swings open. He barely stops himself from screaming out in surprise, and breathes out a sigh of relief when he sees Zayn on the other side of the door. He almost apologizes when he notices that he accidentally flung water in Zayn’s face in his panic, but honestly, Zayn deserved it for scaring him.

“Zayn, what the fuck?” Liam whispers as he dries his hands off.

Zayn wipes the water off of his face and gives Liam his best no-nonsense look. “It’s later.”

Liam sighs when he realizes what Zayn means. “Fine. Can we at least go to one of the rooms to talk about this?”

Zayn nods and walks over to one of the bedrooms nearby. Liam notices a bag with Zayn’s initials on it on the floor by the bed when he follows Zayn into the room. They must be in the room Harry let Zayn use for the week then. Zayn settles down on the bed and leans back against the headboard and gestures for Liam to sit down with him. Liam gently closes the door and sits uncomfortably on the corner of the bed as far away from Zayn as possible.

“I hope I didn’t wake you up, I was trying to move around as quietly as possible.”

Zayn glares at Liam a little bit for how far away he’s sitting and for trying to change the subject. “I’m a light sleeper.”

Liam frowns a little at that. At this point they’d all been living together for a week, and if there was one thing Liam had learned about Zayn is that he was not a light sleeper. Why would Zayn lie about that?

“Fine, I wasn’t asleep. I had been on my phone, but put it away when I heard you waking up. Don’t worry, none of the other boys woke up while you were cleaning up.”

Liam nods his head in understanding and waits for Zayn to start asking questions.

And waits. And keeps waiting.

Liam stays silent though. He is not going to budge on this, if Zayn wants to know more, then he’s going to have to be the one to ask about it.

Finally, Zayn sighs in annoyance and starts talking.

“Look, I just want to know what’s going on. What did you mean when you said that you’re not straight? You don’t like boys, so how can you not be straight?”

“I never said I didn’t like boys,” Liam matches Zayn’s annoyance, but is overwhelmed by his anxiety and loses his voice pretty quick. Zayn gestures for him to keep talking.

“It’s complicated okay? I’m still trying to figure it out, to be honest. It’s not as simple as straight, gay, or bi-”

“But it is, it’s literally that simple,” Zayn cuts in.

“It’s really not, though,” Liam felt like he was whining, and no, that was not the way to have this conversation. He clears his throat and starts again, “For me, it’s not really gender that’s the deciding factor for me. Like I said in the closet earlier, I wasn’t uncomfortable because you’re a guy, I was uncomfortable because we were expected to kiss.”

“I’m not following.”

“It’s the kissing and all the other…stuff, that’s where I get hung up. I just, I don’t want to kiss anyone or have sex with anyone. Like I can imagine going on dates with people and holding their hands and spending time with them, but I can’t ever imagine doing more than that. It weirds me out.”

Zayn still looks perplexed, “So you want to date people, but…you don’t want to have sex with them?”

“Right!”

“The sex part weirds you out?”

“Yes.”

Zayn’s quiet for a few seconds and then, “So do you not masturbate or anything?”

“Dude!” Liam yells out in surprise, but cuts himself off when it’s louder than he meant it to be. He starts again, making sure to whisper, “Dude, what the fuck? You can’t just ask shit like that!”

Zayn looks just as confused as he did at the beginning, “I’m sorry! I just don’t get it! I don’t- What you’re telling me just isn’t making sense.”

Liam’s heart sinks. He knew, he knew no one would get it. It’s just another thing that makes him weird, another layer that separates him from everyone else.

“Stop that!” Liam startles when Zayn smacks his arm. “Stop doing that! I don’t know what it’s like at your school, or what the kids there do to you, but you can’t keep disappearing as soon as something doesn’t go the way you want or someone doesn’t understand something you’re telling them. Stop running away. Have a little bit of faith in us, at least. Harry said it earlier, we’re in this together now and we have to have each other’s backs. So you need to stop doubting us, stop expecting us to be like the kids you know at home. Give us a chance to understand, and fucking talk to us.”

Zayn settles down, leaning back against the head board again. “Fucking talk to me. I’m sorry that I don’t get it, but I want to. Help me understand what’s going on.”

Liam scoots closer to Zayn and sits on the bed in a more comfortable position. “Okay. Um, let me think of another way to explain it. Um, oh! Okay, so this might make more sense. There’s more than just straight, gay, and bi, like there are other sexualities out there besides those ones, yeah? Okay, so one of the other ones is called asexuality. I think the definition is like someone who doesn’t experience sexual desire, or urges, or um, fuck what was the word? Attraction! Yeah, asexuality is when someone doesn’t experience sexual attraction to other people! So, um, instead of liking the opposite gender, the same gender, or both genders, it’s like liking no genders.”

Finally Zayn seems to understand what he’s saying. Or at least, he’s not as confused as before, which Liam will take.

“But you said that you want to date people?”

“Yeah? I mean, yes I said that, and I do want to date people. But I don’t want to have sex with them.”

And Zayn’s back to confused, “Isn’t that just…friendship then?

Now Liam’s confused, “I- I honestly don’t know.”

Liam watches Zayn’s face as he thinks about it, a far-away look in his eyes. He seems to come to a conclusion of some sort because he nods his head and looks up at Liam, “Okay. I’ll be honest, I don’t completely get it, but I can work on that. The important thing is that you’re asexual, and you want to date people but you don’t want to have sex with them. I’m going to look stuff up and I’m going to figure it out so it makes sense to me, but I know what I need to know for now. Thank you for trusting me and not running away.”

Liam doesn’t know what this feeling is, but he’s knows it’s a lot better than the anxiety that has been twisting his stomach in knots the whole conversation. He’s so relieved that he surges forward and hugs Zayn.

“Thank you for listening,” Liam gives Zayn a peck on the cheek, like Zayn had done to him earlier, before he lets go. Exhaustion hits Liam suddenly, all of the anxiety and stress from the whole week is gone, so he just flops onto the bed where he is and mumbles into the pillow, “Let’s go to sleep.”

~*~*~*~*~

“Come on lads!”

Liam sighs internally and slowly follows along as Louis guides all of them down to the beach. They made it to the judge’s house portion of the competition, and he was honestly starting to lose his shit.

“Louis, are you sure we should be out here right now? I think we should be practicing and preparing for the judges,” this has to have been the hundredth time Liam has told Louis this, and just like the other ninety-nine times Liam has said it, Louis just ignores him and continues cajoling the other boys into doing his bidding.

“Louis, seriously! This isn’t the time to play around!”

Louis finally turns around and acknowledges Liam’s complaint. He promptly throws the inflatable beach ball he had been blowing up at Liam’s head. “Liam, stop being such stick in the mud!”

Liam ends up falling back onto his bum (at least the sand kind of softened his landing?) out of surprise and makes an affronted noise. It takes Louis a second to realize that Liam is not playing around and is actually mildly offended, but when he does, he tells the boys to run ahead and find a good spot to set up their stuff. Louis walks over to Liam and offers his hand to help Liam up.

“Sorry Liam, I’m not trying to be mean about it,” Louis explains as he pulls Liam off the ground. “It’s just that sometimes we need to do something other than practice. We were all going stir crazy in that hotel and if we stayed there any longer our nerves would have taken over. I know you’re nervous and that you need to do something to feel in control of the situation, but having some down time to not think about the performance is important too.”

Liam brushes the sand off of his bum while he listens. He’s a bit surprised that Louis had put all that thought into this, and also that he’s sharing that with him instead of making jokes like usual.

“I’ll be honest, I still don’t really get it, but if you think it’ll be good for everyone, I’ll go along with it,” Liam surrenders hesitantly. Louis looks surprised, but quickly shakes it off and starts smiling. Liam swears he’s vibrating in excitement.

“Excellent Payno, you won’t regret it!”

Which means Liam should already start regretting it, then.

~

Liam regrets it, he regrets trusting Louis so much. He also makes sure that Louis knows it.

“Damnit Tommo, I told you we should have stayed at the hotel! This never would have happened if we had stayed there and practiced like I wanted to!”

Zayn grabs his arm and pulls him back, “Liam, mate, I don’t think that’s helping right now.”

Niall’s glare from where he’s holding a teary-eyed Harry confirms that now is not the right time for a told you so.

“Boys please, it’s not that big of a deal!” The way Louis winces through that sentence clues them all in to the fact that he’s lying through his teeth. “Honestly, it’s just a small cut, yeah? ‘Tis but a flesh wound’ and all that. The production people are just overreacting and being extra careful so me mum doesn’t come after them for this. I’ll be back before you know it! And then we’ll get one last practice in and blow the judges away. We’re going to do so good that they’re going to announce us the winners right away. Just cancel the rest of the competition and send everyone home because we’re so good there’s no way anyone else has a chance.”

The EMTs finally finish looking at Louis’ foot where he cut it on, god Liam isn’t even sure _what_ he cut it on, he just knows there’s far more blood then there should be. There should be no fucking blood because they should have stayed at the hotel like he said, and then they would have all been safe and no one would have gotten hurt!

Liam’s brought out of his thoughts by the EMTs telling the people from the production crew that they’ll have to take Louis to the hospital to treat his wound (god a fucking _wound_ ) properly. Louis gives them one last final wave and a ‘won’t even notice I’m gone!’ as the doors to the ambulance close, and then he’s gone.

~

The boys finally listen to him and they all head back to the hotel. Before they make it to the elevators to go up to one of their rooms, one of the people from the production crew stops them.

“I’m really sorry about this, boys, but if Louis isn’t back in time for your slot at the judge’s house, you’re going to have to perform without him, all right?”

Liam is barely keeping his panic at bay and the broken sound Harry makes at that announcement is not helping. Thankfully, the elevator opens right at that moment, so Liam nods his head in understanding and ushers the other boys into the elevator, stabbing at the ‘close doors’ button as quickly as he can. Fuck, they’re going to have to perform without Louis? No, no it won’t come to that, Louis said he would be right back. They just have to take a look, go through official channels to satisfy any legal issues, they’re just going through the motions, it won’t take that long!

Something at the back of Liam’s mind tells him that they can’t walk into that audition unprepared just because he was scared to face the changes that losing Louis would bring. They need to push through this and be practical about it. And if no one else was going to step up and be an adult about it, then Liam would. It’s what he’s been doing the whole time anyway.

The elevator dings when they finally get to their floor and Liam shuffles everyone out and herds them towards his room. They need to stay together right now, whether they practice or not. Liam is not losing any more of them to easily preventable shenanigans. No sir, they are staying in his line of sight so he can make sure they’re okay.

Niall and Harry are sitting on one of the beds together, Niall’s arm still wrapped around Harry’s shoulder in comfort. Zayn is sitting in the chair over in the corner of the room by the random table that hotels put in every room, distancing himself as far as he can without actually leaving them. Liam runs his hand over his face and tries to think of what to do next.

“We’re not…” Harry’s wobbly voice trails off, but starts again stronger. “We’re not actually going to perform without Lou, are we?”

Liam lets out a deep sigh, “Harry, we might not have a choice.”

“But we can’t! It wouldn’t be right without him!”

“I know Harry! If everything were ideal than we wouldn’t have gone out to that darn beach, we would have stayed here and practiced like I’d wanted to, and Louis would have never hurt himself and we wouldn’t be stuck here trying to work out how to perform without him!”

“It’s not his fault he got hurt! Stop blaming him Liam! He was just trying to look out for us!”

Liam laughs in disbelief, “Look out for us? I don’t think he was trying to look out for us, I think he was goofing off like he has been this whole competition!”

“Hey!” Niall cuts in. “Knock it off, both of you! Liam you know very well that that’s not what Louis has been doing. I’m sorry that the rest of us don’t have your experience and expertise, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not working just as hard as you to make this band work. And Harry, your heart is in the right place, but now isn’t the time for this. Liam is right, we need to figure out how to get through this performance and make sure that there will be more performances for the _five_ of us in the future. Do you think Louis is going to be happy to come back and see that instead of missing out on one of many performances, there will be no more performances at all?”

“No, he wouldn’t be happy about that,” Harry replies in a thoroughly chided tone.

“That’s what I thought,” Niall nods decisively and then turns to Liam. “All right Payno, what do we do?”

“Oh! Um, well…” Liam scrambles to think of what to do. “First things first, I guess we have to figure out who’s going to take over Louis’ parts. It’ll probably be easier to plan if we write it out.”

They all move over to where Zayn is sitting and Liam grabs the complimentary pen and notepad. He starts writing out everyone’s parts to see who has the capacity to take which parts.

~

“All right, let’s take a break!” Liam calls out, cutting off the song.

Everything is a mess and he doesn’t know what to do.

Somehow, they’re getting worse, not better, every run through they do. Harry’s started messing up parts he never had issues with before, Zayn keeps forgetting the parts where he’s supposed to take over for Louis, and all the tension seems to have finally gotten to Niall and made him shut down. At this point they’re just giving themselves sore throats, and Liam has no idea how to fix it.  No matter what he says, nothing changes. He knows the boys are doing their best to listen to him, but they just don’t have the technical training that he does, and he doesn’t know how to explain things otherwise.

God, fuck. Louis knows how to explain these things. He always takes what Liam says and breaks down the jargon and technicalities in a way Liam isn’t able to. He always kind of thought that Louis was fucking with him and trying to take credit for what Liam said, he hadn’t realized what Louis was doing.

And if that isn’t the understatement of the year! Liam never realized what Louis was doing. He always thought the older boy was goofing off and messing around because he was incapable of taking anything seriously. Instead, he was making sure all of the boys understood what was happening and what was being said, or helping them keep their heads.

Liam hadn’t understood what Louis told him at the beach, but now he thinks he does. He can see everyone’s nerves getting the better of them. He can see all of the boys getting lost in their heads. He has to do something quick or they’re never going to make it through this performance.

“Okay,” the other three look up at Liam as soon as he starts to talk. “This isn’t working, we need to do something else. Let’s go down to the pool for a bit, yeah? Take a solid break and get our minds off of the performance?”

Three matching looks of relief and wariness look back at him. Zayn finally speaks up, “Liam are you sure? We’re nowhere near ready to sing in front of the judges.”

Liam puts a reassuring hand on Zayn’s shoulder, but also makes sure to make eye-contact with all three of them. “I know, but our nerves are taking over. We’re getting too lost in our heads and if we keep going the way we are, we’re just going to hurt ourselves more than we’ll help. We need something else to do so we can come back at this with a better mindset.”

Liam let’s out a small sigh of relief when they all nod in agreement. They all grab a towel and whatever else they need and head back over to the elevator.

They run into one of the production crew members from earlier when they get off the elevator and start walking over to the pool.

“Oh boys, there you are! I was just going to look for you.”

They all stare at the crew member in apprehension, waiting for more bad news.

“Oh don’t look at me like that! I’ve got some good news for you. We just got a call from the crew members that went with Louis to the hospital, and they said that he’s all cleared and on his way back now. You don’t have to perform without Louis!”

Harry immediately breaks away and runs to the front of the hotel, the complete opposite direction of the pool. Zayn follows after him with a quiet ‘I got him’. Niall and Liam give the crew member a hurried thank you and go after Harry and Zayn, although at a slower pace.

Harry insists that they wait outside on the steps until Louis gets there, so they can greet him right away. None of them have the heart to say no (or to admit that they couldn’t wait for Louis to get there either and had been thinking the same thing.).

Liam’s not sure how long they all sit there waiting, but the moment a vaguely familiar car starts coming up the drive, they’re all off their feet and running over. He’s pretty sure one of them even starts cheering when Louis gets out of the car. Louis hobbles to meet them half way, and as soon as they’re in range, they engulf him in a group hug. Liam doesn’t even try to lecture anyone, he’s so happy that Louis is back.

“Lads! Lads! Have some dignity, please!” the way Louis laughs as he says it lets them know that Louis is just as happy to see them.

When things finally calm down and they start heading back to the hotel, Louis hangs back so he and Liam have a little bit of distance from the others.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry, Liam. I should have listened to you earlier, and this whole mess could have been avoided.”

Liam gapes at Louis for a second before shaking it off. “No, no, I should be the one apologizing! I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. And you were right, we needed to get out of the room and do something besides practice. We were falling apart without you Louis.”

Louis seems a bit shocked at Liam’s honesty, but he recovers quickly. “Would you say you were all _torn_ without me?”

“I take it back, I didn’t miss you at all,” Liam starts walking faster to catch up with the boys.

“Wait, wait. Would you say that _nothing’s fine_?”

Liam starts running, not even stopping when he reaches the others.

“Liam wait! Don’t leave me behind! You can’t do this, my foot is hurt! Liam please, I don’t know what I’ll do if you don’t come back! Liam, _I’m torn_!”

~*~*~*~*~

“I’m going to grab a drink, anyone want anything?” Cher asks. A couple of the other contestants call out what they want. “Someone’s going to have to come help me if that many of you want something!”

Aiden, who is sitting next to Liam, volunteered. Before he follows Cher to the kitchen though, he turns to Liam, “Hey mate, you want anything?”

“Oh! Maybe just some juice or water? Don’t trouble yourself over it though.”

Aiden nods and follows Cher into the kitchen. Liam settles back into the couch and turns his attention to the movie playing. They’re a couple weeks into the competition, and as amazing as it has been, it has also been hell on everyone’s nerves. The contestants all decided pretty early on that the day after an elimination round, they would all hang out together and do something to take their minds off of the competition and decompress a little bit. This week no one had the energy to go out and do something, so they decided to just have a movie day. Liam just joined in now, after finishing his work out and showering. It looks like they’re slowly making their way through the Harry Potter movies first and are trying to decide on what to watch after those. It was very interesting walking in to see Harry throwing a bit of a fit because he wanted to watch the Lord of the Rings movies but he had been met with a resounding ‘no’. Liam decided to sit next to Harry and try to comfort him, but nothing seems to be helping. He even offered to have a separate movie night with just the other boys where they could watch the Lord of the Rings movies, which cheered him up for a second, but didn’t get rid of the pout that Harry’s kept going through the whole movie so far. It probably doesn’t help that periodically throughout the movie the other contestants turn around and repeat  lines of the movie to him (Niall said they spent a good five minutes earlier where everyone just kept yelling ‘yer a wizard Harry!’ at him).

It’s been a couple of minutes since Cher and Aiden went to go get drinks, and Liam is starting to wonder what’s taking them so long when they finally walk back in. They’re both a bit giggly, which for Cher isn’t all that odd, he guesses, but he is a little surprised to see Aiden giggling. They usually don’t act like that unless they’re about to prank someone. Liam starts to feel a bit uneasy, looking at all of the drinks they’re handing people and trying to see if there’s anything wrong with them. Nothing seems to be amiss until Aiden hands Liam his drink, but Liam doesn’t understand why. Cher has to cover her mouth to stop from full out laughing and Aiden has tried to stop giggling but he can’t quite get the mischievous look out of his eye.

“Here you go Liam, I wasn’t sure what juice you wanted to, so I just got you some-” it takes Aiden a second to finish his sentence because he starts giggling again. “Water. I got you some water.”

Liam takes the cup hesitantly. He’s sure that the joke is being played on him, but he has no idea what they did to it. It honestly looks like normal water. “Thanks mate.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Aiden has completely given up on containing his giggles and is on his way to full on cackling like Cher.

“Oh good! Some water, thanks mate!” Louis swoops in out of nowhere and grabs the glass out of Liam’s hand and steals Aiden’s seat next to Liam before he can sit down again.

“Louis no-” Aiden’s warning does nothing to stop Louis, who takes a large gulp of the drink. And then promptly spits it out all over Aiden.

“Is this fucking vodka?” Louis asks, and Liam can barely understand him through all the coughing. “What the fuck?”

Harry leans closer to Liam, reaching behind him to pat Louis on the back. Niall has started to inch closer from where he was sitting on the floor, his nervous laugh in full affect. Zayn pops up next to Louis and takes the vodka away, replacing it with another glass.

“Here, Lou, some _actual_ water,” Zayn aims a nasty glare at Aiden as he says it.

Liam’s honestly a bit dumbstruck, he doesn’t know what to do. He can’t process what’s happening, and keeps looking from Louis to Aiden to Cher and back with a small frown.

Aiden’s still wiping off the vodka that Louis spit out at him, when Zayn turns back to him. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

Aiden looks taken aback at Zayn’s acidic tone and starts to get defensive. “It was just a joke, mate, calm down. We just wanted to see Liam’s reaction, since he never drinks with any of us. We were just doing it for a laugh.”

“Well no one’s laughing now, are they?”

And Zayn’s right. Aside from Niall’s nervous laughter and a couple laughs from Louis’ spit take, no one is laughing. They’re all definitely paying attention though.

Before Zayn can go off on Aiden some more, Louis holds up a hand. He’s finally gotten his coughing under control, but he takes one more sip of water before talking.

“Let me get this straight. You thought it would be hilarious to give an _underage minor hard liquor without his knowledge_? You tried to give an underage minor a shit fucking ton of hard liquor, one that people normally take in small shots, without his knowledge or consent? Are you hearing how stupid that was or do I need to say it again?”

“I don’t see what the big deal is! You did the same thing to Harry last week!” Aiden is definitely starting to angry now that, not only did his prank not go how he planned, but people are getting mad at him for it.

Louis just scoffs, “Yeah, I gave him a _reasonable amount_ of alcohol that was properly mixed with soda after asking him if it was okay. Literally the only variable there was what kind of alcohol, and that was because Harry said ‘surprise me’. Fuck Aiden, didn’t you ever think that there’s a reason Liam doesn’t drink with the rest of us?”

Liam tenses up. Fuck no, Louis is going to tell the whole house about his kidney. But Liam made sure they all knew how much he did not want other people to know about that. He made sure! And Louis is going to ignore all of that and tell everyone without checking with Liam first! This is a mess, he shouldn’t have come down here for movie day, he should have just stayed in his room and practiced, or kept working out, or called his family, or done literally anything else but come out here.

In the midst of Liam’s panicking, he doesn’t notice the way Harry has moved his hand from rubbing Louis’ back to gripping his shoulder and how Zayn has moved closer to grab part of Louis’ arm in warning as well. Niall’s laughing has picked up again from where it had trailed off and Louis stumbles over what he was going to say.

Liam does notice when Harry moves his arm to wrap it comfortingly around his shoulders and when Niall scoots closer to lean against his leg. He tunes back in just in time to hear Louis respond to his own question.

“It’s cause he’s a goody fucking two shoes. If Liam wants to be a fuddy duddy, then let him do so in peace.”

Liam relaxes for a second when he realizes that Louis didn’t say anything about his kidney, but then tenses up again when what he said sinks in. Of fucking course Louis would use this as a chance to make fun of him. He should have known that this was coming. There’s literally no winning with him.

Harry abruptly stands up (and then almost trips over Niall at his feet). He grabs onto Liam to pull him up and gives Niall a small nudge with his foot until he stands up as well.

“Well, I don’t know about you boys, but I am not willing to be subjected to this inferior magical movie series! I am going to watch the Lord of the Rings, a far more superior movie about magic that does not involve my name.”

Harry walks away towards their shared room, with Liam in tow, being as snooty and snobby as possible to break the tension and distract the other contestants from what happened. And it works, for the most part. Most of them start laughing, and Harry gets a few calls of being a poor sport, but then everyone turns back to the television.

The other boys follow after Harry and Liam, but Louis stops for a second, leaning in close to whisper in Aiden’s ear.

“Don’t let me catch you pulling shit like this with one of my boys again. You won’t like the consequences.”

~*~*~*~*~

“So you got a date later?” Louis asks while waggling his eyebrows in what Liam has learned Louis thinks is a playful manner, but honestly just means that Liam is about to hate the next five to ten minutes of his life.

“Wait, what? Do I have- what?” Liam is completely taken off guard by Louis’ question.

“Come on mate, don’t play dumb,” Louis throws an arm around Liam’s shoulder and starts walking back toward their marks. “You were talking to her for _forever_ and you’ve been flirting with her all week at practice. So have you asked her out on a date yet? Or has she asked you? You seem like the type that would let the other person make the first move.”

Fuck, not this again. Liam doesn’t know how Louis manages to do it, but he somehow always focuses in on the things he doesn’t want to talk about and drags them out in the open so he has to.

“Seriously? Flirting? I wasn’t flirting with her! We were just talking. And we weren’t talking ‘for _forever_ ’, we literally only talked for like a minute while the choreographer was focused on Harry,” Liam explains exasperatedly. He’s had this conversation with Louis like five times now and he doesn’t know how many times he’s going to have to explain it to get through to Louis that he is never flirting with the other person. “She likes comics and she’s noticed that I’ve been really nervous this week, so she talks to me about comics to distract me from my nerves. I literally have the same conversations with Zayn.”

Liam is saved from hearing Louis’ reply because the choreographer finally gives up on Harry (Liam loves the boy, but he honestly cannot dance) and calls them all together to start working on their second song. Thank god, Liam did not want to talk about this while they’re at rehearsal and in front of other people. Especially not this week of all weeks when they’re doing a second song instead of the group song.

“We’re talking about this later, ya hear! I’m not letting this go!” Louis calls out as he walks to his new spot.

Why this week? Liam can’t help but think Why did Louis have to wait until this week to decide he needs to get to the bottom of Liam’s love life?

~

Liam’s hope that Louis forgot all about their conversation during rehearsal is crushed the moment they get back to their room in the X Factor House.

“All right Liam, spill the beans,” Louis turns to Liam as soon as the door closes behind Zayn.

At least he waited till they were in their room and only the other boys were around.

“Louis, please, can we not do this right now?” Liam asks, his shoulders slumping.

“Why not? Now is as good a time as any,” Louis pushes. He crosses his arms across his chest and tries to puff up as much as possible to show he means business.

“It’s really not. Please, I can’t deal with this right now. We have two performances this week, you literally could not have chosen a time when we’re under more pressure,” Liam tries again, hoping the reminder of their extra workload will deter Louis.

Unfortunately for Liam, it does not. It seems to provoke Louis more instead.

“Well we could have had this conversation weeks ago if you would stop dodging the question!” Louis throws his hands up in exasperation.

“Maybe I don’t want to have this conversation? Did you ever think of that?” Liam’s voice starts to raise as he gets a bit heated in response to Louis frustration. “Why do you need to know in the first place?”

“Why do I need to know? Why do I-” Louis takes a step towards Liam and starts poking his chest. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I want to know more about you! Maybe because I want you to bond more with the band! You keep putting up all these walls and distancing yourself from all of us! Forgive me for fucking caring!”

At that Liam snaps, “Caring? You call that caring about me? All you fucking do is make fun of me! God, can’t you take a fucking hint? I don’t want to answer your questions because I don’t want to give you more to mock me about! I already have enough bullies at home, Louis, I don’t need another one here! So excuse me for trying to protect myself.”

Liam can’t stand how heartbroken Louis looks, but he refuses to feel bad for standing up for himself. The room is absolutely silent while Louis takes in what Liam said; Harry looks like he wants to intervene and say something, but Niall holds him back with a hand on his shoulder and is shaking his head.

“I-” Louis starts, his voice lowered to almost a whisper. “There’s a lot that I don’t understand about what you said, but I don’t get why you would think I would mock you for being straight? Like, we all came out to each other at the bungalow, so I don’t know why you think we would give you shit about who you like?”

“Fuck, that’s what you’re fighting about?” Niall exclaims (it looks like with all of the tension, he couldn’t follow his own advice and had to say something). “Lou, Liam’s not straight. He doesn’t talk about who he likes because he doesn’t like anyone, not like that at least.”

Liam’s head jerks over to look at Zayn, who immediately starts to panic at how betrayed Liam looks. “You told him?”

“What? No! No, I didn’t tell anyone!”

“What the fuck, Zayn? I trusted you!” Liam starts to tear up, and he runs out of the room before the others can notice.

They all stand there in shock as the door slams closed behind Liam.

“Was I not supposed to know that?” Niall asks, hesitant.

Zayn looks at him in disbelief. “How the fuck did you know that? Liam only told me.”

“I thought it was obvious?” Niall shrugs. “He always looks uncomfortable when anyone brings up dating or sex, he completely avoided the question when we were at the bungalow, he’s totally oblivious to whenever someone is flirting with him or trying to make a move, and when he does notice, he freaks out. I can’t remember the name for it, but it’s a different kind of sexuality, and I had a mate a while back who identifies that way come out to me. He and Liam act really similar, so I just kind of assumed.”

“And you waited until right now to say anything about it? Whatever, never mind, I’m going to go find Liam.”

“No,” Louis grabs Zayn’s arm before he leaves, “I should go. There’s some stuff I need to straighten out with him.”

~

Liam is huddled into the corner of the bathroom, squished against the bathtub with his knees pulled up to his chest, when Louis comes in.

“Go away.”

Louis curses quietly when Liam’s voice breaks because of the way he’s crying. He sits down right in front of Liam, as close as he can without touching him.

“Liam-” Louis starts, but Liam cuts him off.

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Liam please,” it takes everything in Louis to not reach forward and try to hug him. He knows that physical touch isn’t something that helps Liam when he gets like this. Liam’s only broken down a couple of times from the pressure of the competition, at least when Louis was around, and he hasn’t quite figured out the best way to help Liam through it, but he knows not to touch until Liam asks. “I know you don’t like talking like this, so you don’t have to. Please listen to me though? I would like to apologize, but I can also talk about other things, or I can go grab one of the other boys for you. We can even just sit here in silence for as long as you want, but please don’t make me leave you alone.”

“Okay,” Liam mumbles after a minute, head still resting against his knees. “You can apologize.”

With the way Liam’s mumbling and crying, it sounds more like ‘you can ‘pol’gize’.

Louis sighs in relief and starts talking as low as he can without whispering. “Liam, I’m so sorry. I had no idea that you thought I was being mean to you. Well, that’s a lie. I knew you didn’t like when I made jokes as much as the other boys did, but I didn’t realize how much you disliked it. I’m sorry, I should have talked to you about it when I noticed, but I thought that if I kept doing it you would see that I didn’t mean it in a bad way, that that’s just how I communicate with people. I don’t think this will help, but I want you to know that none of the jokes I made were meant to hurt your feelings. I was just trying to get you to loosen up and have some fun. I see now that that’s not how they came across and that I hurt you. I’m so sorry Liam.”

“But you always- you always harp on me for being a- being a goody goody,” Liam wasn’t crying as hard as before, but his breathing was still uneven and made it hard to talk. “Like when Aiden- when Aiden tried to give me- give me alcohol.”

Louis’ face darkens at the mention of Aiden’s so-called ‘prank’, but he’s careful to make sure it doesn’t affect his tone. “Liam, I’m sorry, I really wasn’t trying to be mean to you, especially when Aiden tried to prank you. Fuck, I thought I had handled that well, too. I was trying to lighten the mood and distract him from the real reason you can’t have alcohol. I almost told him about your kidney, but the others reminded me right before I said anything that you don’t like people knowing about it, and calling you a goody two shoes was the only thing I could think of. I’m sorry, I should have talked to you after to make sure you were okay and that you knew why I had said that.”

Louis scoffs at himself, “Guess I should have talked to you about a lot of things. Probably would have cleared up a few misconceptions.”

Liam lets out a short watery laugh at that too, and finally looks up at Louis. He’s stopped crying for the most part and almost has his breathing back under control, but his face is flushed and tearstained, his eyes bloodshot. His voice isn’t quite steady yet, but he starts talking anyway, “I’m sorry, too, Louis. I should have talked to you about this before when I knew it bothered me.”

“No, it’s not your fault-” Louis starts to protest.

“You’re right, it’s both of our faults,” Liam says. “As much as I want to blame you for it, friendship is a two way street. I knew I was unhappy and didn’t like how you joked about me, so it’s at least partially my fault for not trying to talk to you about it earlier.”

“I- fuck, can I hug you now?” Louis stumbles over his words.

Liam laughs, but nods his head yes. There’s a moment of confusion as they try to figure out how to arrange themselves, until Louis just moves Liam how he wants to. Louis slips his legs under the arches that Liam’s legs make and then wraps his arms around Liam’s middle and pulls him closer and leans his head on Liam’s shoulder. Liam takes a second to relax, but when he does, he wraps his arms around Louis’ shoulders and rests his head to the side of Louis’, in the crook of his own arm.

They sit like that for a while without talking. Once Louis feels Liam start to pull away a bit, he asks the question that’s been bugging him. “So, now that we’ve agreed to talk more, can we talk about the liking no one thing? It’s totally cool if you don’t! But, um, I don’t really understand, and I don’t want to say the wrong thing about it anymore, but I won’t know how to do that unless you tell me. I also want to be able to stop other people from saying the wrong thing about it too.”

Liam tenses and puts his head back down so he doesn’t have to look at Louis. His tone is biting when he says, “What, Zayn didn’t tell you everything already?”

Louis sighs and squeezes Liam, both to reprimand him and comfort him. “Please don’t be mad at Zayn. He didn’t tell anyone anything, I promise. Niall is just too smart for his own good and figured it out on his own. He said he has a friend who identifies the same way and kind of just assumed you did based on how uncomfortable relationships and sex talk made you. And, even if Zayn had told me, I would still want to hear about it from you.”

Liam relaxes again, but keeps his head down to hide his embarrassment. Louis gently knocks his head against Liam’s and starts rubbing his back, “Take your time.”

“It’s called asexuality,” Liam starts. “And it’s not that I don’t like people, I just, I don’t really want to have sex with them? The definition of asexuality is that someone doesn’t feel sexual attraction, so like, I still see people and think they’re cute and maybe want to date them and hold their hand and stuff, but I don’t want to have sex with them? Like I don’t look at someone and think, ah yes, I would like to do sex stuff with you. I don’t know if that makes sense, it’s kind of hard to explain.”

“I’ll be honest Liam, I don’t completely understand it. I think I get the basic idea, and I’m going to work to understand it better, but it’s going to take a bit for me to get it. I’m sorry,” Louis squeezes Liam again, feeling bad that he can’t quite grasp what Liam is saying.

“Hey no,” Liam squeezes Louis back and finally looks up at him. “It’s totally okay, I didn’t really expect you to get it the first time around. It means a lot that you listened to me and admitted that you didn’t get it though. Thank you for not pretending you understood or making a joke. Honestly, it took Zayn a while to understand it too.”

“When did you tell Zayn, by the way?” Louis asks. That was the other thing that had been bugging him to be honest.

“Oh! Back at the bungalow actually, our last night there.”

“But wasn’t that the night we drank and played truth or dare?” Louis frowns as he thinks about it. “You and Zayn went into the closet together for seven minutes in heaven, right? Wait, you two kissed that night!”

“We didn’t kiss!” Liam laughs. “You just came in at a weird time and it looked like that. Zayn only kissed my cheek. I kind of told him while we were in the closet because I was uncomfortable, but then we talked about it some more later while you were all asleep.”

“So that’s why you two were upstairs in that room when we woke up! I was wondering what had happened.”

They both sit there in silence for a little bit longer, happy to finally have the air cleared.

“All right, was there anything else you wanted to talk about before we go back to the boys?” Louis asks, pulling away from Liam a little to get ready to stand up.

Liam does the same, but shakes his head a little, “No, I think that was everything.”

“All right. We’re going to have to talk about some of this a bit more though, okay? Like, joking wise, do you want me to just not joke with you like that at all anymore?”

“Oh, no!” Liam looks a little bit surprised, like he hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Just, maybe, let me know that it’s a joke? If anything goes too far, I’ll let you know, but at least for now, tell me when you’re messing around?”

Louis throws his arm around Liam’s shoulders and starts walking back towards their room. “Can do, Liam, can do.”

~*~*~*~*~

“I don’t get it,” Louis plops down on the couch next to Liam with a small pout. When no one responds, Louis steps it up a notch and throws himself onto Liam. Liam sits there, staring at his hands where his phone used to be, and then finally looks at Louis, who has thrown one of his arms over his face like the drama queen he his.

“Louis, come on, I almost beat my high score!” Liam complains, but there’s no heat behind it (he had already lost, there was no way he was going to beat his high score, but Louis doesn’t know that). He starts digging around underneath Louis to find his phone, but Louis starts squirming around and slapping at Liam’s hands. Liam finally gives up looking for his phone and ends up having to hold on to Louis’ hands to stop Louis from hitting him.

Over the past year or so, since they left X Factor, Liam’s loosened up a lot. It took a while, but he finally knows the difference between when Louis is making jokes and when he’s trying to be hurtful, and they’ve both gotten a lot better about talking to each other when a joke has gone too far or they don’t understand something. It’s not perfect yet, but they’re getting there. They finally feel like a unified force, all five boys against the world.

And fuck are they going against the world. Now that they’re not in the competition anymore and they’re actually out and about (on the X Factor tour and making their own album), things are starting to hit a little harder. When they were in the competition, they were kind of shielded from the worst of what the press would say, because they weren’t really news worthy? Yeah they had some fans, but ultimately they finished in third place, so that says everything about that. But now they’re really picking up some fans and attention, and they’re actually doing interviews with people instead of the silly little X Factor extras, which were really just games. It’s a bit of an adjustment, and to be honest, some people have adjusted better than others.

Niall and Liam seem to be doing the best out of all of them, but that’s not really saying much. Zayn seems to be the most bothered by the loss of his alone time; that has been an adjustment all on its own, getting used to constantly being around each other and trying to find times and ways to still get time alone. Louis keeps putting on a brave face, but they can see the way the media and critiques get to him. Harry seems to have taken things the worst, but that’s probably just because he’s the most open about how he feels and the media has the most to say about him.

“All right Louis, what’s wrong? What don’t you get?” Liam asks. They just finished an interview and are hanging out in the green room, waiting for the okay to leave. Liam and Niall had been chilling out in silence on their phones before Louis came crashing in, and Zayn is hiding somewhere (probably back in their dressing room). Liam thought that Louis had run off with Harry to get up to their usual shenanigans before they left, but now he’s starting to worry a little since Louis came to the green room alone.

Liam gets more worried when Louis actually goes still (he had been wiggling around, half-heartedly trying to get out of Liam’s hold) and his pout settles into a frown. “It’s Harry. I don’t know what’s up with him. He was upset after the interview, but he wouldn’t tell me what’s wrong. After that article came out about him being a lady’s man or whatever, he kind of shut down and he won’t talk to me about anything anymore. I don’t know what to do, he’s literally never shut me out like this.”

“Oh shit, really?” Liam asks in surprise. “Honestly, that interview was kind of rough. I really did not like the interviewer, and her questions were horrible and invasive. I got so caught up in my own thoughts, I didn’t even notice Harry getting upset.”

“God, you’re both numbskulls,” Niall mutters to himself. “I don’t know what you boys would do without me.”

“What?” Liam and Louis turn to look at Niall.

“Look, maybe this is something that Harry would feel better talking to Liam about,” Niall suggests, still looking down at his phone.

“Wait!” Louis sits up suddenly, but doesn’t move away from Liam. “Do you know what’s going on with him?”

Niall finally looks away from his phone and gives Louis the most unimpressed look Louis has ever seen Niall make. “No, I don’t know, Harry hasn’t told me anything, but I can guess at what’s bothering him. How do you spend so much time with him, yet notice so little?”

Louis finally breaks his hands out of Liam’s hold so he can cross his arms across his chest and huff indignantly at Niall. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Liam pushes Louis off his lap and onto the couch to distract him (Louis may be worried about Harry, but he will always take the time to throw a fit if he feels like he’s been slighted – especially when he’s worried). “Are you sure it’ll help if I talk to him Niall? If he’s not talking to Lou, then I don’t know…”

“I’m sure Payno,” Niall says. Liam starts to get up from the couch, like he’s going to go find Harry right now. “But not right now! Wait till we get home yeah?”

“Oh, yeah,” Liam says sheepishly, and sits back down. “That’s probably smart.”

Niall shakes his head and goes back to his phone. “You lot would be lost without me, I swear.”

~

Liam waits until later, after they’ve all eaten dinner to approach Harry. He ends up walking the whole apartment before he finds him in their guest room (it’s part guest room/office/music room/Harry’s old room, they kind of just use it for whatever since they just share a room now). Liam should have known that this is where Harry would go to hide; even though they all have their own apartments in this building, with the exception of Harry and Louis who share one, they all spend most of their time in Harry and Louis’ apartment. It’s basically become their home base, and they really only go back to their own apartments when they need some alone time.

Liam knocks on the open door to get Harry’s attention. “Knock, knock. Is it cool if I join you?”

“Yeah, sure,” Harry nods. Liam frowns, but goes in and sits next to Harry on the bed; something must really be wrong, Harry never passes up a chance to make a knock-knock joke.

“What’s going on, H? You’ve been down lately, and we’re all a bit worried about you,” Liam asks. He knows that Harry’s a tactile person and usually gets comfort from people hugging him, but Liam decides to wait until Harry asks, and turns to face him instead, sitting with his legs crossed.

Harry sighs and slumps down a little where he’s leaning against the head board, “I didn’t mean to make you all worry. There’s just a lot going on in my head and I don’t know what to do- I- I don’t know how to figure it out and all these articles are coming out about Caroline and how I’m a womanizer and all these interviewers keep asking those questions and it confuses me even more, and I’m just so frustrated!”

“Woah there!” Liam grabs Harry’s hands from where he had started pulling at his hair and squeezes them briefly to try and comfort him. “Hey, hey, Haz, it’s okay. I’ll help you figure it out okay? And if I can’t, then Louis can help you figure it out, or Niall or Zayn, yeah? You’ve got people on your side, and we’re here for you, always. Here, take a couple deep breaths, try to relax a little, and start from the beginning? I’ve always found that it helps to talk about things out loud when they get all jumbled up in my head like that.”

Harry takes a few seconds to do a couple deep breathes and tries to center himself. He turns so he mirrors Liam’s position and settles their linked hands between them. He takes one more deep breath and then asks, “How did you know you were ace?”

Liam startles a little, not expecting that at all. Throughout the two years or so they’ve known each other, Liam’s talked to all of the boys about his sexuality, answering their questions and often times working through new feelings with them. He doesn’t think any of them have ever asked him this question though. “Oh! Um, well, I just, um. It wasn’t actually me who figured it out? I already told you guys about how I didn’t really have friends back home, so I spent a lot of time on the internet, and I had a few friends there. Or at least, I had people I talked to pretty regularly. I think I started asking them questions about sexuality or liking people because someone at school had called me a slur and I hadn’t known what it meant and things devolved from there. But one of them asked if I had heard of asexuality because the stuff I was describing sounded a lot like it, so I looked into and started researching stuff, and it felt right. Like all the shit that the guys at school talked about sex and girls I never understood or could relate to cause I was like, yeah that girl’s pretty but like I just want to hold her hand? I want to be close to her and be important to her, but like that’s literally it. And like, I’m not gonna lie, it took me forever to get there and figure that out. It’s really hard defining the absence of something, you know? To figure out that you’re missing something when you’ve never felt it before.”

Liam sits there for a few minutes while Harry takes in what he said, but when it becomes clear that Harry isn’t going to say anything, he hesitantly asks, “Can I ask why you wanted to know that?”

Harry’s grip on Liam’s hands tightens and he leans forward until his forehead is resting on Liam’s shoulder. Liam frowns, he can’t imagine that the position is comfortable, so he scoots forward until their knees are touching to try and help (it doesn’t help a lot, but it’s the thought that counts right?).

“Cause, I think- I think that I might be something similar?” Harry mumbles out, some of his words getting lost in Liam’s shoulder. “I don’t think it’s exactly asexual? Because like, the sex part isn’t a problem for me? Like I’ve always been down for the sex part. But the feelings part always messes me up? I always thought that I liked people just fine, but my relationships never last long because the other person always says that I’m not as into as they are, and they can’t deal with that. But like, how into it am I supposed to be? My partners have always felt like friends that I have sex with, and I don’t know what else it’s supposed to be like? But I got tired of it, so I stopped dating people, but now the media has picked it up and they keep calling me a womanizer and stuff, but I’m not like that? I’m not like that. I don’t use people for sex and stuff, I swear I don’t. I just don’t have feelings for them outside of that. Is that bad? Does that mean I am using people? I’m not trying to I promise. I just- they always expect so much of me and I don’t know what to do with it? I don’t know what to do.”

Liam feels his heart break when Harry gets choked up towards the end of what he’s saying. He untangles one of his hands and starts running it through Harry’s hair to try and comfort him. God, it takes him back to when he was just figuring out his sexuality and couldn’t help but feel like something was wrong with him, like more than just his kidney was broken. “Harry no, you’re not using people, there’s nothing wrong with feeling like that. It’s okay, you’re okay.”

Liam just kind of holds on to Harry and keeps telling him that until he calms down a little and isn’t crying, then tells him, “Hey, hey, listen to me, what you’re feeling is perfectly normal. Well, not normal maybe, but it’s not wrong. There’s a name for what you feel too! You said it was kind of like being ace, and you’re right, there’s a really similar identity. I just can’t- fuck, I can’t remember what it’s called. It’s something about romance? I’ll look it up with you, okay?”

“You’re just having me on. There’s no way this is a thing,” Harry accuses, burying his head deeper into Liam’s shoulder.

“Harry. Harry look at me. Fuck, Harry, come on,” Liam finally grabs Harry’s face with both hands and gently moves his face so they’re looking at each other, eye to eye. “Listen, I wouldn’t lie to you about this. Something I learned when I was first researching being ace was that there are different types of attraction, okay? Like romantic and sexual and platonic and there’s one about looks that I can’t remember, and others, but the point is, there are a bunch of different types of attraction. And the thing is, like they’re separate? So they can happen on their own or with others. So like with me, for asexuality, I don’t feel sexual attraction, but I feel the others. Like, I see people and I think how pretty they are, but it stops there, I don’t think about how much I want to have sex with them. Does that make sense? So for you, you’re kind of the opposite, you don’t feel romantic attraction. You see people and you like how they look and want to have sex with them, but you don’t ever feel anything different from friendship with them, yeah? Does that sound right?”

Harry’s eyes widen and his mouth forms a small ‘o’ in surprise. “I- Yeah, actually, that sounds…That sounds like me…”

Liam smiles, “We can look into it together, or if you want to look on your own, or whatever you want to do, but we can find the terms and definitions and stuff that matches you!”

Harry leans his forehead against Liam’s, body slumping in relief as all the tension he’d been holding is released. “I would like that.”

~*~*~*~*~

“Honeys, we’re home!” Louis calls out obnoxiously loud.

Liam rolls his eyes and follows Louis through the front door of their house. He pushes Louis’ discarded shoes into their designated spot (what? there are five of them here, they have to be at least a little organized otherwise it would be utter chaos) before slipping off his own and then hanging his and Louis’ jackets on their hooks.

“Lou, come on, put your stuff away properly,” Liam whines, following him through the house.

“Now why would I do that when I could have you do it for me?” Louis winks at Liam as he walks over to where Zayn is sitting reading a book in the little windowsill nook they had put in specifically for him. Louis leans down and gives him a kiss on the cheek, “Hey babe, how’s the book?”

Zayn waves Louis off without looking at him, “Well I would know if someone would actually let me read it.”

Liam snorts and presses a kiss to Zayn’s head as he passes, following Louis again as he makes his way towards the kitchen. They pass by Niall sitting on one of the couches at the other end of the living room from Zayn.

“Hey bub, game going well?” Louis purposefully gets in Niall’s face and gives him a peck on the lips, completely blocking his view of the television screen and breaking his concentration on the video game he’s playing.

“Fuck, Louis!” Niall yells, dropping the controller in his lap. “It was going better before you got here. And find a sexier name for me!”

Louis just laughs (more like cackles evilly) moving on to the kitchen. Liam shakes his head and makes sure to walk behind the couch, instead of in front of the screen, and presses a kiss to Niall’s head as well. “He’s just mad that you beat his high score while we were gone.”

Liam heads to the kitchen as well where Harry is experimenting with food again. The counters are littered with devices and foods Liam doesn’t recognize.

“Hi baby,” Louis says in an over exaggerated seductive tone. He leans over and gives Harry a slightly longer kiss than he did the other boys, and then dips him, bending so low Harry’s barely a foot off the ground.

Harry laughs through the kiss and replies in the same tone, “You can call me anything you like if you keep kissing me like that.”

They both crack up and Louis laughs so hard that he ends up almost dropping Harry. When they stand up, Liam goes over and kisses Harry’s head like he did the other boys.

Harry goes back to doing whatever dark magic he was on the food, “So, how was the song writing session? Write anything you like?”

Louis hops up on a clear section of the counter and Liam leans on the counter next to him. “Wait! I haven’t said hello to everyone yet!”

Harry and Liam look at Louis in confusion, but then Louis leans down and kisses Liam’s head, “Hey bubbulla.”

“Idiot,” Liam softly punches Louis in the arm, but then kisses the spot right after.

Louis ignores it, but he can’t hide his pleased smile. He turns back to Harry and finally answers his question. “We did actually! Liam had this idea for a song and I can’t get the melody out of my head.”

Liam leans more against Louis, settling in to listen to the absurd stories he’s going to tell about their day.

Liam never imagined that this would be his life. He had no idea four years ago standing on that stage with these four boys he didn’t know that they would become the most important people in his life, his band members, his partners. But damn is he glad that he stuck with them.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope y'all liked it! feel free to send me any questions!


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